I've been an obituary writer, a journalist, a copy editor, a PR pro, a strategist, a market research junkie, a blogger, a social media enthusiast and raconteur, among many other things throughout the last 19 years. My favorite role, however, has been leading and working collaboratively with strong teams to achieve impressive results in content and communications, especially where digital rubber meets the marketing road. By day, I oversee security strategy and portfolio marketing for Cisco. By night, I often try to share with others what I learn. I can be found most often on Twitter at @mediaphyter.

2012 Budget Considerations for Social, Online Marketers

Marketers are a crafty sort and, most successful businesses are adept at finding ways to get these crafty marketers to spend their money on new programs that promise to boost brands, or in the world of social media, create opportunities for engagement. Options run the gamut from promoted tweets, purchasing online reviews, buying social network followers, celebrity endorsed content and so on. With all of these possibilities and so much noise, what is a brand to do to decide how to spend its dollars? And how much, if any, of the clutter cutting responsibility is on the users? This post takes a look at some of the options available in the socialsphere and what marketers should, or perhaps should not, consider for spend in 2012.

Promoted Tweets vs. Sponsored Tweets As social business is a young market, both social media managers and consumers are learning the pros and cons of different approaches, and are wading through some layers of confusion. One big area of confusion is the difference between a “promoted” tweet and a “sponsored” tweet and the perceived value for both. Laura “@Pistachio” FItton, inbound marketing evangelist at HubSpot and co-author, “Twitter for Dummies,” offers a clear and simple explanation.

“Promoting a tweet is simply paying for your tweet to appear at the top of Twitter.com search results for certain keywords. You can also pay to promote a trending topic or a Twitter account,” Fitton said. “Sponsored tweets is a third-party advertising service that lets you buy access to, for example, a celebrity’s followers in the form of a tweet by the celebrity.”

Promoted tweets are mainly purchased and managed through Twitter and sponsored tweets are often secured through a third-party service, such as one offered by IZEA. This is not to say that the latter is bad — Twitter’s growth was exponentially influenced by its ecosystem of third-party applications and services. However, despite a celebrity’s perceived reach based on following, Fitton is doubtful that sponsored tweets merit the marketing investment that a more pure-play promoted tweets approach might justify.

“I’m not sure [sponsored tweets are] a great idea,” she says. “Assuming a tweet will perform better in front of a bigger audience is a lot like trying to push on a rope. You can’t force it to go, it needs to be ‘pulled’. Of the two, promoting a tweet is generally more organic, because it has to be a decent tweet in the first place. Twitter doesn’t let you just promote a random spammy tweet, it has to be actual content with some resonance. I’d also say the promoted tweet is more likely to gain targeted support.”

Michael Brito, senior vice president of social business planning at Edelman Digital, and author of “Smart Business, Social Business,” also believes that sponsored tweets are more challenging than the more straightforward promoted tweets, which are akin to a more traditional advertising model. This is something that many brands and even users find more easily palatable — and justifiable — due to familiarity.

“I look at promoted tweets the same way I would as any other form of paid media. If I am launching a new product or promoting an event I would leverage paid media to capitalize on the impressions that it can give me,” he says. “With sponsored tweets, the question of authenticity comes to mind. If I pay a celebrity to tweet about my product but he or she has never used my product, there is certainly an issue with that. Of course, if a brand sends some products to bloggers and/or celebrities and the agreement is to tweet about their experiences with it, I don’t really have an issue with that as long as there are proper disclosures. Brands have to earn trust in the social web and sponsored tweets might not be the most effective way to build it.”

The parallels to traditional marketing common sense do not end with an advertising versus sponsorship model. At the very basis, content continues to be king. Method of promotion notwithstanding, if the Twitter content is not quality, there’s not much sense in making a big investment in promoting it.

“Twitter subverts the influencer model such that the message itself becomes the true influencer. It has to be good or it just won’t carry, no matter how many followers see it,” Fitton says.

Brito concurs, in that relevant content is the only surefire way to grow a community, whether it be on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, or any other type of social property.

“This means providing the community with the right content, at the right time, in the right channel, to the right customer,” he says. “As long as the payoff for the customer meets this criteria, I don’t necessarily have an issue with sponsored tweets; as so long as the person has actually used the product… However, I think most consumers realize that these celebrities are getting paid huge dollars to promote a product. Do you really think Chuck Norris would use the Total Gym if he wasn’t paid to talk about it? Probably not.”

Buying Followers, Buying Influence? Brands have a lot more to consider than whether or not a superstar has actually used a product for endoresement. Whether considering promoted tweets or sponsored tweets or other types of social marketing, one must consider the current yet ever-evolving measures of social influence. Services such as Klout, Kred, and others take a few hits, but they do have some merit, and much of that merit is that they are forcing a mind-shift away from the belief that number of followers truly depicts a brand’s or user’s amount of influence. According to Fitton, this follower count logic is downright wrong.

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One area that seems to be missed in this article is the two way conversation that leads to the greatest level of engagement value. Helping a customer in need and responding to questions is the most sure fire way of long term customer value. Investing in smart people that can represent your brand is the best budget consideration. #eValue

I wouldn’t say missed – there are a lot of areas that marketers should consider for investment, and you’re right, top talent is one of them. These are areas that seem to be, at least according to a lot of posts I read and questions I get, that are causing confusing for investment. Without the right talent, the customer loyalty, the engagement and the other pieces that the sources in this article described would not be possible.

From the Article: “Do you really think Chuck Norris would use the Total Gym if he wasn’t paid to talk about it? Probably not.”

For most marketers, the challenge is this: what if Chuck Norris is already using your product, but no one knows about it? Marketers that work hard to create authentic social marketing programs turn to the paid products for scale – the relevant content has to reach the audience.

It’s incumbent on the company to continue the investment in the engagement side, to match the media spend in order to build the community.